Wind Chimes
by TheOceanBreathesSalty
Summary: Please Review! The characters are not mine. It's a Channy/Chadson/ChadSonny


You loved her. You loved everything about her. She was on the short side, don't tell her that though because you're _still_ cringing from the one time you said it (really, without the healed boots she just _isn't_ that tall), and had chocolate brown hair that fell in waves midway down her back. Dark brown eyes glimmered like some kind of precious jewel through too long bangs and she had full red lips that were smiling more often than not. She wore bright clothes on rainy days because she told you that if the sun wasn't going to be there to cheer you up, she would just have to do it herself (she glared at you when you laughed but really, it was funny, she was imitating the sun, she was Sonny, get it?).

Your relationship started out in a rather unique way, at least you think it did. You knew her, but the two of you hadn't done anything other than fight with each other since she got there. But then the Mackenzie Falls teacher quit and your two classes merged together and Ms. _Bitter_man lived up to her name, forcing you to sit next to her.

"_Hey." You said as you sat in your new seat next to her, and away from all your friends._

"_Hello." She said quietly back. There were long moments of silence, not quite awkward but certainly not comfortable._

"_Don't you hate assigned seats?" You questioned after the silence had become too loud. "Makes me feel as if I'm back in elementary." You smiled at her, one of your charming smiles reserved for angry teachers and disapproving parents, and although you don't like to admit it, she didn't swoon and you were shocked._

"_Actually I kind of like them. New people, new chances, that kind of thing, you know?" She responded, a slight glimmer in her eyes that it took you really should have identified as mischievousness (but you're kind of oblivious sometimes), "besides, what was wrong with elementary school? There was still nap time." And yes, she's most certainly mocking you. You're so surprised that the words slip from your mouth before you have time to sensor them._

"_You're mocking me?" Your words are incredulous and your eyes have narrowed into a disbelieving glare. _

_She threw back her head and laughed._

She had the most amazing laugh that you had ever heard. It was kind of like wind chimes. You think it every time she laughs but you aren't ever going to say it out loud because you _refuse_ to become one of those sappy romantic guys (really, you're Chad _Dylan_ Cooper, you can't be _sappy_).

At least, you aren't going to let anyone else know that you've become one of those guys (okay, so maybe you can be a_ little_ bit sappy, but just a little).

So you've kept quiet about your thoughts on laughter like wind chimes.

"_Whatever! That's not even true!" She can barely get the words out because she's laughing so hard. You're laughing too, you have been all class in fact. An hour and a half of straight laughter makes your stomach hurt and your cast mates are looking at you like you've lost it (you can hear it now "consorting with the enemy now, Chad?") but it's __**absolutely**__ worth it._

"_That's what you just said!" Your class is analyzing some book, Austen or Shakespeare or some other dead author whose writing people are still suffering through decades later (and you do mean __**suffering**__, it was __**terrible**__), and your glad that you haven't been called on because you haven't been paying attention to the teacher all period._

_It's been about three months, maybe a little more, since your entire world changed. The fact that your world changed around the same time that you had to switch classes probably says a lot but you're too distracted to notice the correlation._

"_I did not call Shakespeare a boring old man!" She was still laughing and thoughts of wind chimes popped unbidden into your head for a moment before you come up with a rebuttal._

"_Well then who did? Because someone said it, and it sounded suspiciously like you." You're grinning, like you haven't since you got really famous, and as she says some witty retort you cannot stop thinking about how stupid you were before. Always fighting with her and never talking to her was probably the worst decision that you had ever made._

_You find yourself slightly horrified at the fact that you're becoming so mushy, but this is just what she does to you._

_What's worse?_

_You don't actually mind._

It was around the time that you realized how much she had come to mean to you that the relationship began to change. You began to notice how she looked, bright and radiant on some days but quiet and unassuming on others, and how her smile was _dazzling_ when she was ecstatic but when she was sad the whole room was too.

The thing you noticed most though was how she was always in motion. It didn't matter how she was moving, she just always was. Sometimes it was her hands moving descriptively while she spoke or her pencil tapping against the desk as she listened to her iPod or a nervous foot jumping up and down almost silently during a test.

And even though you had known you were noticing her, you still hadn't really thought about why (don't judge, you already admitted you were sometimes oblivious). It wasn't until you were out on a date with some actor that was guest starring on the Falls that week that you realized what you had been so unconscious of.

By the time you were five minutes into the date, you had managed to start hating the girl for ridiculous reasons. You hated her eyes because they were muddy brown (and they were horrible _dull_) and her hair because it was this awful bleached out shade of blonde. You didn't like that she was so _still_ all the time, when she spoke or smiled nothing moved but her mouth and even then it didn't move very much. You hated that she didn't pick up on your subtle jokes and that it seemed as if she had not one speck of sarcasm in her entire body and you suspected that she didn't know what banter even _was_ let alone how to do it properly.

It wasn't until you had dropped her off, with absolutely no reassurances about this happening again; that you noticed the entire time you had been comparing the bleach-blonde to Sonny. You had been comparing their eyes (Sonny's were _obviously_ more gorgeous) and their hair (really, no one liked bleached hair) and how they spoke (because Je_sus_ you missed the challenge).

You aren't an unobservant person, you don't have the freakish memory like that guy on Psych nor do you know all the intimate details of other people's lives (in other words, you don't care about other people and you haven't for a while, not until her), but you still notice things.

So that's why it was so surprising to you when you realized you were in love with her. You don't know why it took so long, because it really was pretty obvious (once again with the oblivious thing), but it did and then you had that sudden _realization_ and everything changed once again.

She always changed everything.

First when you sat next to her in class and then when you began to notice her constant motion (which was about the time that you started watching her show but _shh don't tell_, you would never live it down) and then when you realized you were in love with her.

You had fallen for her, and you hadn't even noticed it happening.

One day you were the same as ever, well not really the same as ever but not in _love,_ and then all of a sudden you realized you were in love with her. It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water in your face. You hadn't seen it coming, and it was over and you couldn't change it by the time you realized.

_There was a substitute today, and therefore it was the perfect opportunity. You were finally going to do it. You were going to tell her how you felt._

"_Any talking and an automatic referral." The substitute droned as the bell rang._

_Your jaw clenched and you shook your head while she stared at you in confusion. A note landed on your desk seconds later._

_~Are you all right? You seem kind of off or something~_

_You grinned at her, mouthing I'm fine and tucking the note into your backpack because you were planning on keeping it._

_She had drawn a heart at the bottom of the page._

It was a long time before you finally got to tell her. Every time you worked up the nerve, something or some_one, _thanks to the Chuckle City nerds, (whatever, so you were in love with a random, you didn't have to like the rest of them) got in the way. And every time there wasn't anything in the way, you didn't have the courage to do it (which sounds weird because your, well _you_, but this could change everything).

It was surprisingly anticlimactic when it did actually happen.

You had agreed to work on an English project together (agreed, practically begged her to work with you, same difference) and were working in the living room at her place when you looked at her and she looked so _beautiful_ and you just couldn't wait anymore. So you blurted out one rushed stream of words and then sat there in fear for five minutes while she deciphered what you said and ended up with, "I think you're kind of awesome and that you should maybe date me for a while or something. Tonight work for you?" At least that's what you said, you aren't sure if that's what she heard.

But nevertheless, she said yes.

_You had been dating for a while now, about one and a half years. And now it was about to be over, So Random! was being cancelled (which was weird, because as much as you made fun of it, her show actually had more viewers than yours did)._

_She as leaving California, and she wasn't allowing you to follow her._

_She had been offered another position and was going off to New York, which was on the __**other side of the country**__and you still can't accept she's going so far away._

_Tonight may be all that was left._

_You picked her up at her place, waving to her mom as you drove away from the curb. You headed to the park, and you spent the rest of the night there. It was late night, or early morning, when she finally spoke._

"_We aren't just going to be another love story, some teenage cliché." She said it with assurance, because she had always been __**that**__ girl and she knew that it wasn't going to change. She wasn't going to be someone like that bleach-blonde you dated and later hated, because she was her own person and that's who she had always been. _

_And she really hated clichés._

"_No." Your input really doesn't matter, because both of you know that you aren't going to be another teenage love story, but you know that she likes the guarantee (because you know everything about her, which is also why you didn't try to talk her out of leaving. You knew she'd leave anyways)._

"_Then what're we going to be?" You're unsure of the answer to this question, so while you try to come up with the words, you lean over and press your lips to hers while your guitar-calloused fingers intertwine with her slender ones. You pull back and the words that you didn't even come up with slip easily from your mouth._

"_We're going to be everything."_

That was five years ago, and you still missed her. Missing her was the reason that you had boarded the Red-Eye flight to New York City, where she had settled down, on some TV show as well as pursuing her passion for music, and waited an _extremely _impatient seven hours to get there.

Your hand closes around an old faded and torn note in your wallet, and you glance at the heart drawn on the bottom of the page before sliding it back into your pocket as a broad grin covers your face.

You get off the plane and see brown hair, longer but still the same too long bangs falling in her face, and eyes like jewels are sparkling the same way they were last time you saw her.

You reach her in easy strides and pick her up, swinging her off her feet.

And wind chimes sound in your ears.

You laugh.


End file.
